


summoner unlocked

by Bijouu



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - RPG, Archer Yeonjun, Assassin Taehyun, Bard Beomgyu, Developing Friendships, Final Fantasy Inspired, Fluff and Angst, Genshin Impact Inspired, Light Angst, M/M, Mage Hueningkai, Minor Violence, OT5, Sentinel Soobin, Shapeshifting, light and dorky tbh, petty arguments and foolish humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28191561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bijouu/pseuds/Bijouu
Summary: SS prompt #78: A witch, in an attempt to show off his magic skills to his skeptical friends, mistakenly turn all four of them into animals>> Except make it an RPG au that's loosely based off of Final Fantasy and Genshin Impact.Mage Hueningkai has ignored his crystarium for far too long. Once it acts up and he reveals to the rest of the party just how overleveled he is in comparison to the others, he accidentally triggers a role unlocking quest. Having turned the rest of his friends into animals, Hueningkai must find each and everyone one of them before they can make it to the next checkpoint and go back home.
Relationships: Huening Kai & Everyone
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: TXT Secret Santa Fic Fest 2020





	summoner unlocked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dalkoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dalkoo/gifts).



> Hi hi! I took a little bit of a different take on the prompt, but was inspired by games I've been playing recently! I hope you enjoy it, and happy holidays ~

“If you keep thumping your shield everywhere, I’ll honest to god take a bite out of your upper arm.”

“Yeah yeah, keep strumming your lute, bard boy.”

To say that the party’s previous dungeon had gone rather poorly would be an understatement. Exhausted, the group of five, semi-tattered adventurers had set up camp some place after the dungeon’s exit. Aching and scraped to hell and back, while everyone tried to focus on anything but the ass-kicking they just received, Beomgyu dragged his feet from person to person, using the last bit of his stamina to top off their health.

“Do you really wanna play this game with me?” Beomgyu grit through his teeth, fingers freezing on the strings of his healing lute. “I could be saving this treatment for myself. You’re lucky you’re tanking, otherwise I’d have left you halfway through the dungeon.”

Soobin frowned, picking his head up from where it’d been hanging low. His skull rattled with a headache so massive that it even muffled his hearing. Their party leader was obviously exhausted, nearly scowling unnaturally when he stubbornly accepted their cleric-bard’s song. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah- and don’t argue,” Yeonjun sighed, pulling his sleeves over his fingers. The night had come so quickly that their camp was rushed and barely cohesive. They had all the material they needed from their guild, but frankly, everyone was too tired to move. “Kai-yah, can you make this fire a little better, please?”

“I don’t do elemental magic,” the mage carefully replied, but he set his staff to the side in favor of squatting beside the fire and poking it around as best as he could. It wasn’t like he was lying though; for a mage, Hueningkai lacked in elemental magic. He instead excelled in physical magic among… other magic as well.

The fire felt nice and hot on Hueningkai’s cheeks. He felt as if its warmth would take the soreness away from his muscles as if pulled by a magnet. If he could just curl up right there and sleep- oh that would be golden. The eerie crows from this land’s birds prevented him from being able to doze off just yet though, and the camp of five continued to mumble in hushed conversations. Besides, Hueningkai thought, taking a quick look at the other party members. They were too frustrated with each other and their results from earlier to just be able to comfortably fall asleep. 

“Don’t go to bed without leveling your crystarium,” Taehyun said, louder so everyone could hear. He dug around their inventory for snacks to pass out between the five of them. Hueningkai strategically sat himself between the still-brooding Beomgyu and Soobin. Though the two of them were naturally close to each other, best friends even, Soobin and Beomgyu were evenly matched to each others’ tempers, and Hueningkai was simply too tired to deal with the tension. It was easy to see where their frustrations were coming from. 

The last battle made the mage feel like he’d been picked up, tossed around, and dragged on the floor right afterward. Everyone’s stamina was mostly drained against the elemental boss, and Hueningkai could still hear that thing’s weird screeches echoing in his brain. The loot they’d gained from defeating it was no joke, but Hueningkai could already imagine the embarrassment they’d face, returning to the Guild Leader and having to admit that this adventure had been  _ difficult _ . 

At least for now, sitting there on the floor of a pretty jungle and with a steamed pork bun in his hands, they could just put that dungeon behind themselves. 

“I’ll level my crystarium later,” Hueningkai sighed, leaning back against Soobin’s shield. It was a shiny new thing; a recent dungeon-raid spoil that their party leader was especially proud about. He treated it like it was sacred, and honestly, from the lengths that they went through to obtain it, it might as well have been.

“You have to remember to level up- no seriously, Kai, we can’t leave this zone underleveled or else we’ll get destroyed like  _ last time _ .”

“Don’t pick on him, he’s just shy about his crystarium.”

Hueningkai blinked, chewing the steamed bun a little slower. “I didn’t even say anything,” he frowned, but the comment was quickly lost as the other began to level their roles from their shimmering soul crystals. They twinkled like prisms, shining multicolored rays into the otherwise dull night. “And- my crystarium isn’t anything special anyways,” he added, thinking about his own precious, secretive amber crystal in his chest.

“He doesn’t want us to see how underleveled he is.”

Now that was just wrong, Hueningkai thought with a scrunch of his nose. The flower-like crystariums gained more petals and parts with each increased level, and Hueningkai had always considered his quite beautiful. It was just something he didn’t want to share with others.

He rested his thin fingers across his sternum as he shifted back, away from the fire and ignored the party members’ tired quipps toward each other. “I’m not underleveled-”

“And that’s why Yeonjun-hyung had to carry you so hard through the last boss, right?”

Ouch. “I didn’t know it’d be an elemental boss,” Hueningkai apologized, sheepishly shrugging in response. “But I’m  _ not _ an elemental mage. I’m doing my best, I promise, but I’ll do better next time.”

Life was too exhausting, to be holding onto negative feelings for too long. Hueningkai was a professional at getting over criticism; that was something required of him in earning his place in the Guild Synodia. The five of them had worked so hard for their party to be accepted by them in the first place, so it wasn’t as if they were lacking, truly. There was just no such thing as winning all the time.

The two moons in the sky hid their faces behind the evening clouds. Even they didn’t want to witness the tension across their tense, shabby camp. It was easy to pick at each others’ nerves over things that went wrong, even though they’d come out of that whole mess with overall success. Hueningkai knew, they’d all be apologetic and talk it out together. The years that they spent in their youth bound the party together, and some after-battle irritability wouldn’t split that at all.

Hueningkai could take the mean words anyways and internally roll his eyes about it. He wasn’t the type to hold grudges, and it wasn’t going to actually hurt his feelings.

Yeonjun waved a hand at the bickering camp. “It’s fine, Kai-yah. Stop hounding the poor kid and pass out already, all of you. We’re taking a break tomorrow, but if we want to make it to our next dungeon, we’ll have to train after resting.”

Dragging one of their sleeping mats to a place a solid distance away from the fire, Hueningkai tried his best to make himself comfortable. He could hear the clanking of Taehyun’s weird glass potions and the heavy shuffling of Soobin and Beomgyu’s equipment as they set out their own sleeping mats as well. As the party’s mage, Hueningkai didn’t have to worry about much equipment at all.

At most, he had his staff, and his spell book, but those were easily interchangeable and put away with a snap of his fingers. The physical fighters, like Yeojun, Soobin, and Taehyun, had a lot of cleaning up to do, whereas he and Beomgyu were good at just dusting their hands and calling it a day. 

But that wasn’t to say that their magic users didn’t put in hard work to the team. Hueningkai never doubted that he could bring a lot to their party’s table. 

Soobin’s shield became a cozy place for Hueningkai to cozy up beside, using it as a block from the humid wind. There was no point in arguing with his tightly-wound hyungs about today’s performance, especially if they were going to bed feeling frustrated and huffy. He knew that his best friends would be apologizing and trying to make it up to Hueningkai for talking about his “underleveling” by sunrise.

True to their apologetic nature, Hueningkai woke up to find Yeonjun’s pretty fur coat over his body, Soobin’s shield carefully adjusted to block the sun from his face, and both Beomgyu and Taehyun comfortably asleep, holding onto Hueningkai’s arms and waist.Craning his head, he could tell that the camp had been picked up from the mess they’d made of it overnight. Their two oldest hyungs had probably dragged themselves away to go on a hunting date.

Hueningkai rubbed his eyes, pulling his arm carefully free from Taehyun’s sleepy grip.

“Huening?” Taehyun mumbled, also sleepily forcing himself awake.

“Good morning, Taehyunnie,” Hueningkai smiled, not even surprised when the other took his arm back for himself to hold onto again. “Ready to get up? We should get ready if Soobin-hyung and Yeonjun-hyung are coming back with food.”

“Leave it to them to sneak out,” Taehyun mumbled, hiding a yawn into Hueningkai’s upper arm. Normally, he and Taehyun were easy to rise, but there was something a little too-extra cozy about staying in their old sleeping bag, covered by Yeonjun’s fuzzy coat. “When do you think they’ll be back?”

“Probably whenever Yeonjun-hyung starts worrying about us,” Hueningkai laughed through his nose. The issues from last night were practically nonexistent, Hueningkai thought, resting his head again. There was no doubt in Hueningkai’s mind that they could sit here for a while, maybe even until their hyungs returned, and pretend that they were just regular kids. He liked this questing life, but it was tiring. Sometimes, he wanted to just be in a pile of his best friends.

Beomgyu barely stirred despite Hueningkai and Taehyun’s conversation, instead deciding to squish his sleepy cheek against the youngest’s other shoulder. 

Things like this was what Hueningkai enjoyed the most, out of journeying with his party members. They went through so much together, that even those moments of being sharp-tongued with each other could be easily worked out. And as for teasing Hueningkai about his crystarium-

_ His crystarium. _

“Let me up?” Hueningkai asked, tugging his arm once again out of Taehyun’s hold, more hurriedly than earlier.

“What gives?” Beomgyu grumpily mumbled. Their bard-cleric was obviously having a terrible time coming to terms with his personal pillow moving around. His arm was lazily slung over Hueningkai’s waist, but as the youngest continued to squirm around, he pulled it back, giving him space. “It’s a rest day, Huening. We’ll train later. It’s not like we’re missing out anything…”

“I forgot I have stuff to do-” Hueningkai sighed, but he couldn’t help but feel fond when all Beomgyu did was stubbornly smack his lips and close his sleepy eyes again. “Let me up, Taehyunnie?”

“Are you upset with us for yesterday?” Taehyun asked, sitting up from their safe little cocoon behind Soobin’s shield. “Usually we’d wait for Soobin-hyung to be around, but I want to say sorry now.”

Sure, last night had hurt for a little bit, but Hueningkai wasn’t the type to unveil his frustrations to the team or hold unreasonable grudges. He wasn’t naive about how his friends treated them; having arguments was a part of friendship. Even if he wanted to keep his crystarium a secret, he knew they’d understand some day. 

Hueningkai had to think really hard in the first place, to remember what they’d even said. Something about his lack of help in the dungeon? Something about elemental magic? Hueningkai knew when his performance was good or subsequently lacking. He wasn’t a great debuffer or synergist like Taehyun and Yeonjun, but Hueningkai’s magical stats, well…

He doubted the rest of the party would believe him about how amazing they were.

“I’m really not upset,” Hueningkai reassured, doing his best not to mess around with Beomgyu too much, who practically snatched Yeonjun's fur coat up for himself the second Hueningkai had taken it off of himself. “The dungeon was difficult for everyone, but I’m really not upset, I promise.”

It was difficult, frontlining with Soobin and Taehyun, while simultaneously trying to hold formations for Beomgyu and Yeonjun in the backline. Even though the team synergized as one, there were careful threads between each of them that linked their abilities together. Being a strong mage, Hueningkai could read them like a book. 

“I’ve already forgiven you anyway, since I know you wanna apologize so bad,” Hueningkai added after Taehyun simply pursed his lips. “We were all just frustrated.” The more that Hueningkai remained there on the sleeping mat, the more he could feel the golden crystarium in his chest hum impatiently. “But seriously, let me up please.”

Taehyun released Hueningkai’s elbow, discontented, just as Beomgyu was. The more that Hueningkai attempted to conceal his soul’s crystarium, the more that it impatiently rattled in his chest. 

Honestly, it felt a little like acid reflux.

“Huening?” Beomgyu frowned, sitting up when the conflict no longer left him sleepy. His sleep-fluffed hair stuck out in a million directions. “We’re really sorry.”

“I know, I know,” Hueningkai weakly smiled, fingers fidgety as he tried to fix his own bangs. “I’m not upset, I promise I’m not.”

Taehyun and Beomgyu stared at Hueningkai, obviously unamused with Hueningkai’s “lie.” How was Hueningkai supposed to tell them that his crystarium was needing some attention, but that he’d rather toss himself into an abyss than let anyone take a peek at it? The better option was to make it seem like there was no problem.

Nope, no problem at all.

His crystarium wasn’t embarrassing or anything - it had just seen much better days. It was something that he was simultaneous too-proud and too shy about.

“Kai?” Taehyun frowned, now sat beside Beomgyu in their sleeping mats. “It’s okay, we won’t push you. But don’t go out anywhere before Soobin-hyung and Yeonjun-hyung get back.”

“I’m just- going to the bathroom,” Hueningkai insisted, putting his hands up innocently. “So… if you don’t mind- oof!”

Just as Hueningkai was trying to make his grand escape, he ran his shoulder into something just around the tree’s sturdy trunk. “Ah! Hueningie! Good, can you help us get this over the fire?”

Hueningkai’s crystarium angrily pulsed impatient vibrations into his chest, but seeing as his two oldest hyungs had made it back to camp hoisting such a large boar between themselves, he kept his feet still. Just looking at the thing made Hueningkai’s stomach growl.

The crystal in his chest was pounding, practically making Hueningkai’s ribs and sternum ache with its tantrum. He tried to soothe it momentarily, rubbing his fingertips just under his throat. He could see just how much effort his hyungs were putting into this ridiculous apology. They weren’t bribing him; Hueningkai just knew and understood that they liked to make up for sharp words alongside sitting together and talking out what went wrong. This was their way of keeping peace in their party, by making sure that each person was cared for and loved.

They went through so much together in their youth. Hueningkai knew how important it was for them to validate each other, and it was certain that they all thought the same as him.

The food was delicious. It was delicious, and a good distraction from the uncomfortable squeeze against his esophagus.

“Kai-yah,” Soobin started, leaning his arms onto his shield. “We want to say sorry, for being rude last night.”

God, his crystarium was thrumming. Hueningkai’s forehead began to sweat.

“Say no more - it’s already behind us,” Hueningkai reassured, holding his palms out in front of him. “I’m just glad that we, y’know, got what we needed from that boss and we can bring it back to the guild.”

“I mean, yeah, but the stuff we said, about your crystarium…”

Hueningkai could hardly pay attention, torso practically vibrating and near detaching from his extremities. “Can we talk about this later?” He frowned instead, but the guilt dripped off his party members’ face in waves. Although the people in his group could be prideful, they were really sweet and sound when it came to matters of group chemistry and feelings. Hueningkai himself was confident that there would be nothing that could cause a rift in their party’s bond. 

He sighed, fiddling a little bit with the edge of his shirt. His hands were trembling as he shook them, trying to ease the tension out of his rigid fingers. It was like his crystarium was going to burst out of his chest any second, if he didn’t take care of it asap, and it became increasingly clear to the mage that if he didn’t do  _ something _ to ease everyones’ minds, the guilt would continue to eat at them all the way back to the Guild. 

“I’ll let you look, but just this once ‘cus I can’t take it otherwise,” Hueningkai nervously mumbled. He supposed this moment would come one day, where he’d have to expose his secret.

The crystal was adamant, continuing to rattle so intensely that it made Hueningkai dizzy. “I’m not upset, I know I wasn’t  _ carried, _ ” he clarified, almost grateful when Taehyun put a hand on Hueningkai’s shoulder to ease his wobbly back. Kai grit his teeth, feeling pink in the face as he held his own hands in front of himself. With a bright, golden light, his gem emerged in particles and settled onto his palms.

Hueningkai tried to ignore the stares of his party mates as the crystal bloomed in layers upon layers, like a flower with hundreds of petals. Its translucent, gold color refracted its shimmering amber light onto anyone nearby. “See? It’s just, kind of a troublemaker, so I don’t like to level it up in front of everyone,” he frowned. The designs on the sides definitely pointed toward Hueningkai’s incredible, magical capabilities. “But I know I wasn’t carried. I mean,” he laughed humorlessly, “Just look at it, right? I definitely um. Put in my work, so that’s why I’m not upset.”

The constellation twinkling in the leaves pulsed uncomfortably quickly, and Hueningkai pouted at its little frustrated defiance, petting the crystals in an attempt to soothe it some more.

“What the fuck, it’s so branched. How can you handle a level that high?” Yeonjun asked, confused and amazed, just as everyone else was. “Kai, holy shit?” 

Despite the crystarium no longer being in his chest, Hueningkai continued to feel jittery, fingers still shaking a bit as he turned it this way and that, attempting to level up his crystarium and its branches. “I’m just better at leveling than all of you,” he decided to joke instead, refusing to tell everyone his real reason for being overleveled. “C’mon,  _ behave, _ ” the mage quietly pleaded.

Without missing a beat, the petals of Hueningkai’s amber crystarium shot out in shards, scattering around the camp as everyone ducked behind whatever cover they could manage. “Put it away!” Beomgyu grunted, crowding behind Soobin’s shield with Taehyun, who had also darted for cover once the pretty crystals had exploded. 

“I’m trying!” Hueningkai answered, gritting his teeth, though the constant swirling, shattering and reconstruction of his crystarium kicked up dirt from the camp, and it swirled so vigorously that even the leaves and needles were detaching from the branches of nearby trees. The crystal pulsed once, twice, and then in the dirty, golden light, Hueningkai could feel his feet be swept off the ground, and the world suddenly turned on its axis. The last thing he heard was a cry of his name.

* * *

The next time Hueningkai picked up his head, both beautiful moons had risen in the sky, but the camp was scarily quiet. It felt like there was an uncomfortable cushion on his chest and he groaned, reaching to grab at the collar of his shirt. Instead, he was met with something incredibly soft and silky. Beside his ear, something yipped, and Hueningkai squeezed his eyes shut one more time before opening them. He was practically begging the world to stop turning on itself. 

“Guys?” he weakly called, still feeling unsettled and uneasy, and the soft thing under his hands only wriggled with the noise.

A set of fuzzy, swirling pink and baby blue, cosmic ears tickled his face. “Oh- there, there,” he whispered, listening as whatever animal had stumbled across his body like this (and no doubtedly was probably attempting to steal his body heat) continued to whimper and cry. A wet nose poked at Hueningkai’s ear, and the mage scrunched his face up when he felt a tongue licking at his cheeks. “Shh, it’s okay, hey, I won’t make you leave,” he promised quietly, pushing his sore body off of the ground and hugging the strange animal close to himself.

Hueningkai’s fingers and nose were cold, but the cosmic, starry fur of what Hueningkai figured to be a fox was warm and comforting. It blinked at the mage with four eyes, a deep blue like no other on its glittering face. “Good cutie,” Hueningkai sighed when the fox-like sweetheart twirled on his lap and settled its paws on Hueningkai’s shoulders.

As the mage stroked his hand carefully down the cosmic fox’s back as it continued to whine, the state of the camp and his current situation really dawned on him. His body ached; it hurt even more than it did after they defeated the elemental boss, but at least that annoying pulsing in his chest no longer irritated him as well. The fox blinked its four eyes at Hueningkai and continued to yup, but Hueningkai’s attention was directed elsewhere.

“Guys?” Hueningkai once again called, but nothing answered.

Even in the dark, cold night, the fire pit was empty and unlit. In fact, the camp looked completely trashed. “Soobinnie hyung?” Hueningkai shivered, teeth chattering as wind passed right through his clothes. It was then that Hueningkai realized that this place must have also been deserted. Everything was gone, and it was only the mage that was left there, on the floor with an anxious fox in his lap. 

His head ached, but Hueningkai didn’t want to give up. In the rubble of their camp, Hueningkai picked up the fox into his arms, cradling him like a baby as he searched behind the nearest trees and in their packs and bed mats for something- anything that could prove that his hyungs were just out somewhere. 

They wouldn’t just leave him here, right? 

Hueningkai sadly laughed, wiping his eyes free from frustrated tears, and the odd fox in his arms continued to whine and wriggle, like it was trying to get closer to Hueningkai’s damp cheeks. “It’s okay, we’ll be okay,” he reassured, turning his head away from the cute, fluffy thing’s little kisses. 

It was easier said than done, of course. There were animal tracks everywhere. As the mage stepped over some knocked over parts of their camps, the two moons in the sky shone their purple, silvery light into the remains of the camp.Something like massive paw prints and craters caused some something- maybe a mighty fight must have happened in camp. Hueningkai wondered, shivering as he saw torn up logs and scratches deep into the earth, what could have happened around him when he was knocked out cold.

And why hadn’t it woken him up? How was he not injured by whatever battle had happened all around him? 

The fox once again chirped at Hueningkai, wriggling in Hueningkai’s arms. 

“I’ve never done this before,” the mage whispered, like a sad little secret. “I don’t want to remember what it was like, the last time I was alone.” He set the fluffy thing onto the floor, watching the cute fox shake its fluffy ears and tail. Sparkles dusted off of its coat and settled onto the dirty ground. “But I guess a fox can’t really judge, right?” Can you, you sweet thing? Oh, you’re so cute.”

There was no time to be sad and confused. If Hueningkai wanted to make proper grounds in finding his hyungs, he needed to be warm and full. “You don’t happen to know how to start a fire, do you?” he asked the fox.

Its little paws left glowing pawprints in the dirt. Somehow, it seemed to nod, and then Hueningkai watched the four-eyed fluffball circle the dead fire pit and concentrate with such a force that its sparkling fur fluffed up around him like a collar. With a mighty breath from its teeny-tiny frame:

It coughed out a small fireball over the fire pit.

“Good try,” Hueningkai sighed, scratching the dejected fox between its big, flattened ears. He remembered how Yeonjun had teased him, for not having elemental capabilities despite being a mage. It was at moments like this that Hueningkai wished he’d specialized his crystarium to something more useful like that when he was much younger and had the opportunity to. He swallowed thickly, feeling cold and alone.

If Yeonjun-hyung were here, he would know what to do. Hueningkai wasn’t even sure how he’d ended up in this position anyway, but it was terrible to say the least.

He was afraid, too afraid to pull his crystarium from his chest and take another look at it again. He wondered if his party realized how overleveled he was compared to everyone else, and if they thought it would be best to let him figure it out on his own. Hueningkai didn’t cry about it; he sat on the ground beside Soobin’s shield and dragged Yeonjun’s abandoned fur coat around his shoulders. The fox followed closely at his ankles and once again settled into Hueningkai’s lap once the mage had sat down.

“You’ll help me figure this out, won’t you?” he asked, petting his gentle fingers down the fox’s coat, and the fox only snuggled in closer, keeping its four, sad eyes on Hueningkai as it did so. 

The more that the lonely mage petted his fingers down the fox’s back, he found something strange just in the middle of its spine. In between his vertebrae somewhere, some part of the fox’s cosmic fur burned so warmly that Hueningkai wanted to bury his cold face into it. Even with Yeonjun’s coat over his shoulders, Hueningkai just couldn’t find any warmth, and something about the sweet animal drew Hueningkai in closer. 

The fox snuffled once and closed his eyes, laying its head onto its perfect paws, relaxing into mush a Hueningkai pet over that warm spot on his back. “You’re so strange,” the mage whispered curiously, and the next time his fingernails trailed over the bumps along the fox’s spine, it gave a mighty shudder and its eyes emitted a bright, blue light.

Hueningkai jolted, hands freezing over the fox’s body as from its spine, emerged a crystal so clear and iridescent, yet shining in pinks and blues just as the fox’s gleaming fur was. Gentle, the crystal set itself into Hueningkai’s palms, and he stared at it with trembling fingers.

It was eerily familiar. The petals on this crystarium were so strong and well thought out. The magic that seemed into Hueningkai’s fingers made it certain; this fox had Yeonjun’s crystarium hidden in its spine.

“Why do you have this?” Hueningkai asked, giving the fox an incredulous expression, but the little thing continued to stare at him with its illuminated eyes, only chirruping one more time and laying his cheek back onto Hueningkai’s lap as if it were exhausted. 

He turned the crystarium this way and that, heart shattering into a million pieces when he found that a whole petal had been ripped out of the side of Yeonjun’s crystarium. Instead, the gem was jagged and rough where the petal had once been, and Hueningkai swallowed thickly, praying to who or whatever was listening that it wasn’t his own shatter that had caused Yeonjun’s crystarium to break as it did.

“How did you end up with this?” Hueningkai asked the fox, but the fox just sleepily yawned and kept its head on Hueningkai’s lap.

He wasn’t a healer like Beomgyu. Hueningkai wasn’t very well versed at repairing things in general, much less something as precious as Yeonjun’s crystarium. He pulled his own, nervously from his chest and compared the both of them side by side. The amber of Hueningkai’s crystal made the pinky-blues of Yeonjun’s gleam in strange colors, but the two of them resonated with each other as a testament to the youngest and the oldest’s closeness.

As if taking from the energy of Hueningkai’s crystarium, little particles detached from Hueningkai’s petals and attached to the broken petal of Yeonjun’s gem. It rebuilt itself, leaving an amber petal in Yeonjun’s otherwise pink and blue crystarium, and then all of a sudden, the fox stood off of Hueningkai’s lap, stretched, and swallowed the crystarium whole.

“Wait- wait I need that!” Hueningkai pleaded, already wanting to smash his own face in the dirt out of exasperation. Not only did he lose his hyungs somehow, but the last trace of them was swallowed by some cosmic fox. It swished its poofy tail as Hueningkai continued to groan in frustration and grip tightly onto the fur coat around his shoulders. 

He couldn’t do this alone; he couldn’t make it back to their guild alone. It was too dangerous to go alone, but staying in between domains like a sitting duck would be useless. Hueningkai brought his knees up to his chest, hiding his face there as to focus on not absolutely bawling at the situation.

Before becoming close to the rest of the people in his party, Hueningkai used to cry all the time. From his rougher upbringing, to not having much confidence in himself, there was more than enough reason for the younger Hueningkai to cry. Things were different now though, and Hueningkai was usually comforted by his favorite people far before the point of needing to cry. 

Here though, alone with some dumb fox, and hungry and cold, there was no one to lend Hueningkai a hand. He could feel that uncomfortable burn at the back of his eyes and in his throat, and no matter how much the mage swallowed around his dry mouth, nothing was helping to ease that pain.

He sniffled once.

“Mm? Why’s Hueningie crying like this?” 

Hueningkai picked up his head, the fur of Yeonjun’s coat tickling his cheeks. 

There, weirdly glowing in amber light and looking almost sheepish, was Yeonjun, crouching beside Hueningkai’s little bundle. 

“Yeonjun hyung?” The mage dumbly asked, sucking in a breath and holding it in. If this all turned out to be an illusion, he didn’t know what he would do.

“Relax, relax,” Yeonjun reassured, adjusting the way his big coat sat on Hueningkai’s shoulders. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry for spooking you.” 

Something wriggled on top of Yeonjun’s pink hair, and Hueningkai gasped, finding those fuzzy, cosmic ears sitting on top of Yeonjun’s head that he’d just seen on the fox. “Am I still knocked out?” Hueningkai pitifully asked, shoving his crystarium back into his own chest instead of letting it levitate dangerously outside his soul for too long. 

“No? Er- I don’t think so?” Yeonjun answered sheepishly, rubbing a hand on Hueningkai’s back, just as the mage had done to Yeonjun when he wasn't here.

Or, technically, when he was semi-here? Hueningkai didn’t have many answers to those questions just yet.

“You still have the ears on your head,” Hueningkai sighed, wiping his face with Yeonjun’s coat one last time. When the older wordlessly opened his arms for the mage, Hueningkai didn’t hesitate to plant himself in the most comforting hug of his life. When he was younger and shorter than Yeonjun, it was easy for him to just turn in and receive hugs from him - from any of his hyungs, really - when he was having a difficult time.

Now, he felt like an overgrown bean sprout with an overpowered crystarium who didn’t really know what he was doing in life besides trying to have a good time with his found-family. It made hugs just a little more difficult, being lankier and taller than his hyung, but Yeonjun never failed to make him feel comfortable.

“We’ll sort the ears out later. Being a fox was… really fucking weird, to be honest,” Yeonjun confessed with one last pat to Hueningkai’s back. “Like for the most part, I still had my conscience, but I couldn’t tell my body what to do? It was really weird.” 

Yeonjun pulled away, much to Hueningkai’s disappointment, but he couldn’t find it in himself to complain when the older magic user quite easily started fixing the dead fire pit. “That’s super weird,” Hueningkai had added after some thought, shuffling closer to the fire to warm up his cold hands. He sniffled one last time, just to clear his sinuses, and his embarrassment, from being caught in a vulnerable situation.

“Not as weird as being shot by your crystarium as if they were homing missiles,” Yeonjun mumbled, poking the fire some more. “We’re going to have to talk about that first, by the way. I know you didn’t… do it on purpose, right?”

“What- no! Why would I do something like that on purpose?!” Hueningkai asked, sitting up to grab onto Yeonjun’s shirt. “Really, I’m so confused. I have no idea what went down- I just felt like my crystarium was acting up, and then the next thing I know, I’m staring at the sky and I have a fox on top of me.”

Yeonjun pouted at Hueningkai and put a hand over Hueningkai’s. “It’s alright, it’s… so your crystarium literally shattered. I think one shard got me real good in the side, and then the others started to freak out and argue or something. The memory is still kind of fuzzy for me too, but they started to argue about something or another… oh shit.”

Hueningkai could feel his heart beat in his throat, the nerves making even his stomach ache. “Then what?”

“This place looks like shit. I’m pretty sure they ran off when they poofed into animals too. I think I was the last person to transform all the way? Your crystarium is really potent by the way. When we get back to Synodia, you have to tell the leader what’s up with that.”

Hueningkai wanted to shrink into the dirt. He wanted to maybe pet Yeonjun’s fluffy fox ears forever, be eaten by the dirt, and then never show his face to the world again. “Do I have to? This is all just a big secret gone wrong. It’s just you guys who know anyway?”

The look that Yeonjun fixed him with was enough to make Hueningkai surrender his case.

“Anyway, we still have to find the rest… I think the magic in my crystarium resisted your crystarium quite a bit, so I didn’t become completely feral or anything, but the others looked like they might, uh… we’ll have to do some taming. Soobin became a fifteen foot tall panda!” 

“My crystarium fused with yours or something, so maybe we just find them and do the same thing that I did?” Hueningkai offered, at least a little more hopeful now that he willingly ignored Yeonjun’s comment about Soobin turning into a fifteen foot tall panda.

“Did you actually just ignore me right now,” Yeonjun scolded, pinching Hueningkai’s cheek until the other whined. “A fifteen foot tall wolf! And we have to figure out how to get these things off of my head before the rest of them make fun of me.”

It was definitely easier said than done. 

The two of them curled up by the fire and shared Yeonjun’s fuzzy coat during the coldest part of the night, and the second that the sun made its presence in the sky, the both of them were groggily dragging their feet, abandoning the camp where it was. Yeonjun carried his bow and Soobin’s shield, and Hueningkai made sure to carry his staff as well as a bag of just the essentials. “They’re going to scold us when we get back to the guild,” Hueningkai sighed sadly.

“What for?” Yeonjun asked with a frown.

“For losing so much stuff. For wasting time getting back to the guild,” Hueningkai shrugged, though in the grand scheme of things, he figured it was better to have ditched their bed mats and other replaceable belongings. 

The fluffy fox ears on Yeonjun’s head wiggled a little bit. “If Soobin talks to them, they’ll let us off the hook. You know much they have a soft spot for him… actually, I bet if you gave them puppy dog eyes, they won’t do so much as wag their finger at you and then replenish your inventory.”

Hueningkai took in a deep breath and held his staff closer to his chest. He was still wearing Yeonjun’s coat; his hyung had said earlier that he had no idea how Soobin managed to carry that massive shield around and that if he was wearing the coat, it would make him sweat, so Hueningkai decided to take one for their team of two and suffer through the heat on his own. 

There were mighty pawprints in the earth, leading further into the forest that became less of trees and more of other sturdy wood. For some reason, there seemed to be a lot of bamboo. 

“He built a fortress,” Hueningkai said, stopping in his tracks. 

Yeonjun, who was a few feet ahead, turned and quirked an ear at him. “Huh?” 

“Look, from here, you can see it,” Hueningkai repeated, gesturing for Yeonjun to come back and take a better look. “You see it right? Look between the branches, it’s obviously a fortress.”

That much was true. From their vantage point, they could make out the intertwining of bamboo and other trees, as if they were woven together in a massive wall. Just from where they were standing, some while away, Hueningkai could feel a powerful energy inside of it. Yeonjun had merely whistled. 

“Think he’ll get mad if we walk right in?” Yeonjun joked, laughing humorlessly, but Hueningkai couldn’t find it in himself to laugh along. He crouched on the floor and used the scenery’s sightlines to figure out just what was going on in there. Something about even looking that far was making his crystarium ring in his chest.

“Maybe a little?” Hueningkai hummed. “It feels really peaceful from out here. I can sense it. I think he’s asleep?”

“Let’s keep him that way, it’ll make this way easier on us,” Yeonjun suggested, and Hueningkai agreed with a nod.

Needless to say, it was hard being sneaky when Yeonjun was dragging around a giant ass shield.

“Hyung,” Hueningkai pleaded, not wanting to be rude, but also not wanting their cover to be blown, the closer to Soobin’s fortress that they got. Something deep inside the fortress rumbled and then silenced, and Hueningkai winced. “You know? I think, maybe I can do this, if you wanna wait out here with the shield?”

“You saying I can’t help?” Yeonjun huffed, but the pink on his cheeks hinted toward his agreement. “I’m just not used to carrying this stuff around.” 

“I know, it’s not a big deal,” Hueningkai whispered. The both of them froze when another long snore came again from inside the fortress. He shrugged off Yeonjun’s fur coat and handed it back to him, stretching out his arms as he tested the weight of the staff in his hands. “I’ll be right back. With Soobin-hyung, of course,” he reassured, giving his hyung one last thumbs up.

Now that Hueningkai kind of knew what was going on, and he wasn’t alone in front of an empty fire pit, he felt more driven to solving these problems. Obviously, his crystarium had wanted something out of exploding as it did, and after being rebuilt and rebuilding Yeonjun’s crystarium, the mage was almost certain that this was something that one of the older members of the Guild Synodia had mentioned in passing. 

_ “Once you unlock a role ascension, something crazy happens to your crystarium. Mine started zapping people when they came more than three feet radius of me. It was kind of hilarious, but now I’ve got an electro passive!”  _

Oh yeah, that sounded just about right, Hueningkai thought, fighting the urge to drag his hand down his face. 

It was easy getting into Soobin’s “fortress.” Hueningkai had to do some light climbing, and although his stamina wasn’t so impressive as the rest of the party’s, he still managed to make it work by using his staff as a tool in an assistance to the climb. His fingers glittered with magic, and the mage, looking down into the massive hole in the fortress saw exactly what Yeonjun had described.

Sleeping on his back, belly facing the beautiful skies, slept Soobin, a massive panda bear. 

Hueningkai didn’t have the time to coo over how fuzzy and cute Soobin looked, instead jamming one end of his staff in between bamboo reeds and using it like a lever to slowly lower himself down into Soobin’s lair. 

Soobin continued to snore, probably so exhausted from doing tanky, sentinel things like  _ building a fortress for no reason _ , that it knocked him clean out. 

The further that Hueningkai lowered himself though, the more he realized that Yeonjun had really underestimated Soobin’s side. Instead of being fifteen feet tall, Soobin was more like fifty feet tall, and Hueningkai hopped down from his little lift, landing on Soobin’s soft stomach with a little “oof!”

The fuzzy ground beneath him rumbles, and Soobin’s eyes open and close as if he were waking up. Hueningkai flattened him and his staff down onto Soobin’s stomach, tensing when Soobin’s massive paw lazily came up to scratch at the patch of fur right beside Hueningkai. Soobin’s claws were massive, and Hueningkai didn’t want to look at it for too long for fear that he’d get too caught up in his head and not find Soobin’s crystarium like he needed to.

Soobin’s paw slid off his stomach and back onto the floor, and Hueningkai waited for Soobin to start snoring again before searching through the other’s fur, trying to feel for a warm patch just as he’d found on Yeonjun’s spine. 

Hueningkai’s staff twinkled, and something in the mage’s chest rattled when Soobin made an uncomfortable grumble. Standing up in Soobin’s impossibly thick fur, Hueningkai gasped, seeing the mark of his own crystarium on Soobin’s forehead. He wobbled as he walked, wincing and apologizing when his feet dug a little too much into Soobin’s panda body. Just as Hueningkai had made it up to Soobin’s chest, the massive panda yawned loudly and blinked awake staring at Hueningkai with too-human eyes.

“Um. Hi, Soobin-hyung,” Hueningkai smiled. “I just need to get to your forehead, if you’ll let me please.” 

If there was one thing that Hueningkai the mage was, it was polite.

Soobin blinked, yawning one more time and grabbed onto Hueningkai’s staff, lifting both he and Hueningkai up into the air and toward his forehead.

At least not before teasingly blowing air at Hueningkai’s body and forcing his bangs embarrassingly back on his head. 

When Hueningkai was set down, he grumbled, blushing high on his cheeks as he fixed his fringe, and tried not to tickle Soobin’s cute, fuzzy ears. “Hold the staff for me, hyung?” Hueningkai asked, holding his staff over the bridge of Soobin’s nose, and Soobin only snuffled, holding onto the staff in between two of his claws. It was so tiny in Soobin’s hold that it practically looked like a toothpick.

Concentrating, Hueningkai closed his eyes, feeling Soobin’s crystal calling out to Hueningkai’s own, and in a quick beam of amber light, Hueningkai pulled Soobin’s crystarium out of his forehead. Similar to what he’d discovered with Yeonjun, a part of the flower was broken off. Hueningkai balanced Soobin’s comically teeny crystarium in comparison to the massive panda body, in one hand as he pulled his crystarium from his chest with the other.

They hovered close to each other, and again like the crystal was leeching off of Hueningkai’s magic, the petal was steadily rebuilt. 

“Alright, hyung! No more fortresses,” Hueningkai said, shoving Soobin’s crystarium back into his forehead, and his own crystarium back into his chest as Soobin erupted into one big poof of magic. 

Hueningkai yelped, forgetting that he was falling without Soobin’s panda body beneath him, and he brought his arms up, ready for the impact, only to be caught against Soobin’s chest with a grunt. 

“Geez! Stop growing, Hueningie, seriously. Any more leg, and you’re going to make Sailor Moon jealous,” Soobin teased, helping the mage stand upright. Hueningkai’s staff was on the floor someplace, having fallen when Soobin let go of it in favor of catching Hueningkai. 

“Sailor Moon is just a myth,” Hueningkai countered, teasingly wiggling in Soobin’s hold before leaving him to gather his staff. “Yeonjun-hyung is waiting for us outside, by the way. Do you remember how to exit this place?”

“It’s technically a domain, so I’m sure there’s a portal somewhere here,” Soobin answered, dusting off his clothes. “Where’s my shield?”

“Really?” Hueningkai snorted, looking around the massive room for the exit to the domain. “How about ‘where’s everyone else?’”

“Everyone else was easier to get in this party than this shield was. You know how hard I had to train to earn that shield?” Soobin frowned, and when Hueningkai turned to him with a deadpan expression, Soobin laughed, eyes crinkling. “I’m just joking! I know, I remember where Beomgyu and Taehyun ran off to. They were arguing about something with one another and then split up.”

Hueningkai nodded, and the two of them walked around the perimeter of the room before finding the portal to the front of the fortress, and true to word, there was Yeonjun, sitting with all of their gear in a safe little pile.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun smiled, ears flickering atop of his head, and Soobin’s eyes widened as he took a good look at them. 

Yeonjun squinted. “Don’t laugh.”

Soobin put his hands up in defeat. “I’m not laughing. I didn’t even say anything.”

“I’m laughing,” Hueningkai interjected, reaching up to ruffle Yeonjun’s pink hair and cosmic ears, and he let out a little screech when Yeonjun threatened to grab at his sleeve.

“Okay brat! We’re getting the last two, and then you’re fixing these off of my head.”

“They’re kinda cute though, hyung,” Soobin shrugged, picking his shield up from the floor and dusting it off. Yeonjun’s ears betrayed him, flickering with the praise despite the pout that he’d fixed into his expression, and Soobin and Hueningkai both snickered, reaching up to pet at the fuzzy ears. 

“Hey! Yah! Mind your own business,” Yeonjun scolded, readjusting the bow on his back that had gone askew over the pet attack that his ears received. “Besides, shouldn’t we be finding Taehyun and Beomgyu right now?”

Hueningkai didn’t want to quit teasing Yeonjun, but he nodded anyways. “But Soobin-hyung says he knows where they’re at, so it’ll be easy for us to just… wrangle them up, right?”

“Oh I never said it was easy,” Soobin clarified with a frown. “I’m pretty sure I saw Beomgyu turn invisible, and Taehyun is a giant snake. They really argued for a while, so I’m not sure how ‘there’ the both of them are going to be. It was easy enough for you to find my crystarium, and maybe Yeonjun-hyung’s too, but I can speak for the both of us when I say it’s because we were sentient enough to understand.”

He could feel the crystarium rattle again in his chest, not so different to how it’d done when he’d stumbled across Soobin. This time, it continued to ring, insisten, and when Hueningkai opened his mouth again, it remained that way. 

Creeping up behind Yeonjun were two eyes, glowing yellow and slitted. Both Soobin and Hueningkai froze, but Yeonjun continued to ramble. 

“Probably because our magic skill is advanced. I’m honestly surprised, since Soobin does better physical damage than magical, but tanks are probably a special case,” he said with a final flicker to his ears. 

Hueningkai’s eyes flickered from Yeonjun to the massive snake - no doubtedly Taehyun - behind him. “Stay still,” he whispered, drawing his staff up in front of him. “Hyung, stay so, so, still right now.” 

Yeonjun’s ears flickered once and his back straightened, finally understanding the expression on the other two’s faces. 

Taehyun’s forked tongue flickered out, and after one more second, he opened his mouth and dove toward Yeonjun.

Hueningkai grabbed Soobin’s shield and stuffed it in the snake’s mouth instead, before it could clamp its big jaws down onto Yeonjun, and dragged the archer closer to both Soobin and Yeonjun right afterward. 

“My shield!” 

“I’ll get you a new one!” Hueningkai promised, firing quick shots from his staff at Taehyun’s nose, which only seemed to enrage him even more. Before any of them could think of what to do, a violet fog seemed out of Taehyun’s mouth. Taehyun, as a saboteur, was one of the most skillful people alive (or so he claimed to be) at inflicting status effects, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that this purple fog was anything less than poison.

“I’ll cleanse it, hold your breath,” Yeonjun said, pulling his arm back from his bow and shooting a short arrow into the airspace around them. The burst of wind cleansed their small airspace of the poison, but Taehyun had only hissed, slithering in closer and spitting Soobin’s bent shield onto the ground. “Shit, I can’t cleanse this much of it!” Yeonjun cursed, firing another magical arrow, this time to one of Taehyun’s fangs. 

Yeonjun, as a synergist knew that he’d be able to cleanse the air if he used much of his magic ability. Hueningkai and Soobin had their faces turned, protecting their eyes and noses from the poison as it sank along the floor. With one last arrow, charged with as much energy as Yeonjun could muster, he shot at the floor, kicking up the cleanse into the air and eradicating the toxic fog from the entire area.

However, by the time the dust settled, it was just Soobin and Hueningkai left in the clearing, along with Taehyun’s snake tracks and not even one trace of Yeonjun.

The dust settled and in the far distance, Soobin and Hueingkai could hear trees falling as Taehyun continued to slither away, probably with Yeonjun in his hold. 

“He’s a giant snake,” Hueningkai said, staring at the craters left in the dirt.

“Yup,” Soobin sighed.

“He took Yeonjun-hyung somewhere. He’s probably still spilling toxic gas.”

“Yup.”

Hueningkai grabbed Yeonjun’s fur coat off the floor and put it back over his shoulders. “We should get Beomgyu-hyung first.”

“Yup.”

“Can you stop saying ‘yup’?”

“Yup. When all this is over and I can ask Taehyun how it tasted with Yeonjun in his mouth.”

They traveled rather quickly in fear of the toxic gas being too much for Yeonjun to try and continuously cleanse. If they had Beomgyu, then their bard would probably be able to heal right through the fog and provide a more permanent cleanse. It was definitely easier said than done though. 

There was something singing in the trees, a tune sad and lonely that Hueningkai had remembered Beomgyu humming under his breath once. The place that they’d traveled to was so pristine, and the lake in the center was crystal clear. “He must’ve purified this as well,” Hueningkai commented, and Soobin nodded, eyes looking out over the water. “If we get close, my crystarium will rattle. We just have to find him.”

Something on the lake caused the water to ripple, and the both of them froze, a little more cautious now that they’d experienced that terrible thing with Yeonjun. Although Hueningkai was confident that he’d be able to find Yeonjun in time, and drag Beomgyu out there to help heal him and maybe even help him cleanse Taehyun while they were at it, it didn’t hurt to be a little more wary of their surroundings. 

“Beomgyu-hyung?” The mage had called out, and the water rippled again. In the reflective surface, he saw an image of a deer, before it shimmered into nothing. “Hey, Soobin-hyung, can you lock down this lake?” 

“Give me two minutes tops,” Soobin nodded, leaving Hueningkai at the edge of the water, talking to Beomgyu’s scared reflection.

“Beomgyu-hyung, I have your notebook for your songs. You just have to become visible for a second,” he gently called out to the water, and its surface rippled again, a little closer this time. “That’s right, aren’t you excited to write again?"

Another ripple, this time one foot closer. A field began to rise from the edges of the lake, and Beomgyu revealed himself, a spotted deer nervously stepping in the clear waters. “Shh, it’s okay! It’s just to keep you safe in here. You know, Taehyunnie became a giant snake?” Hueningkai said, standing up now that Beomgyu was getting more antsy and restless. It seemed like the mention of Taehyun’s name was enough to send Beomgyu into a slight panic, and just as he’d appeared, he disappeared.

Hueningkai sighed, sitting at the water’s edge and dragging his staff into his lap. Soobin stayed at the far edge of the small pool, wanting to stay out of Hueningkai’s business as the other concentrated on the rattling of the crystarium in his chest. 

“Think, think,” Hueningkai mumbled to himself, poking at the cool, crystal waters with a finger. With one last inhale, Hueningkai began to whistle the tune that he’d heard on the way toward this crystal pool. Interested, Beomgyu appeared again, right in front of Hueningkai’s face, and on the sternum of the deer, Hueningkai found the mark of his crystarium. 

He didn’t give up, continuing to hum the bard’s song until Beomgyu had knelt in the water in front of Hueningkai, offering the mark to the mage. Hueningkai carefully pulled Beomgyu’s crystarium from his chest, and it twinkled like it had its own personal tempo. Hueningkai’s own gem reacted quickly, seemingly knowing the drill already as it emerged and fed its amber energy to the broken bits of Beomgyu’s crystarium.

“Easy,” Hueningkai whispered, smiling. Beomgyu was one of his more sensitive hyungs, and he was careful to ease the crystal back into Beomgyu’s sternum. His deer-like frame became watery and splashed down, leaving Beomgyu standing in the crystal pool, right in front of Hueningkai. 

“Wow,” Beomgyu lamely said, looking down at his body and then at Hueningkai, who proudly beamed at him from his seated spot at the edge of the pool. “You should sing more. Maybe you can subspecialize as a bard too, Kai-yah.”

“I have a feeling that this is a summoner ascension,” Hueningkai shrugged, and Soobin dropped all the barriers, hurrying back to Beomgyu and Hueningkai’s edge of the pool. 

“Gyu!” Soobin called, and Beomgyu gave Soobin a quick hug before pulling away. 

“Did you know that Hueningkai’s doing a summoner ascension?”

“Did you know he’s probably going to end up summoning  _ us _ ?”

Hueningkai snorted at that comment, though he didn’t count it off as false. If he’d fused parts of his crystarium with his hyungs’, then it was almost like they were contractually obligated to answer each other when they called. “We have to find Taehyunnie and Yeonjun-hyung quickly though. I might need your help with dealing with Taehyun.”

Beomgyu folded his arms across his chest. “And what makes you think that he’ll listen to me.”

Hueningkai and Soobin shared a quick look before the mage sheepishly shrugged. “Just a feeling? Or a soft spot. I dunno. You two talk it out when we turn him human again!” 

The three of them hurried again, following the indents that Taehyun’s massive snake body had left on the floor. Trees had fallen, deserted around where Taehyun’s body had slithered on by, and just the thought of being caught in toxic gas again made Hueningkai shiver. The air had become thick, no doubtedly a visibility debuff put in place by Taehyun somewhere along his escape, and the three traveled closely to each other, practically holding onto each others’ clothes as they walked.

Hueningkai’s crystarium rattled in his chest, and with a little blink of amber, he hurried over to a fallen log, finding Yeonjun’s limp body beside it. “Beomgyu-hyung!” he called, and both Soobin and Beomgyu came running over.

“I can revive him, it’s an easy spell,” Beomgyu reassured, bringing a small recorder out of his magic particles. “He doesn’t look  _ dead _ dead either. The ears are cute though,” Beomgyu said, sneaking in that last little comment before bringing the recorder to his lips.

Behind them, Hueningkai and Soobin whipped around to hear a hiss and the crumpling of dirt as Taehyun had begun to lower himself from the trees. His tongue flickered out, just as it’d done when he kidnapped Yeonjun. “Taehyunnie, let’s think about this,” Hueningkai said, ever the pacifist. He knew that they wouldn’t willingly hurt each other; Taehyun was practically his best friend. “Give us a minute and we’ll get to you and get you out that big, scaly body.”

Taehyun hissed, opening his mouth, and this time, the fog that slinked out of his mouth dripped much faster. With one final noise, he spat at Soobin, who yelped and dropped his bent up shield with a curse. “He’s burning the handle!” Soobin grunted, unable to pick up the metal now that it was burning red hot. “Ugh. It’s fine. I’ll wrestle him.”

“You’re not going to wrestle a snake,” Hueningkai said, sending shocks of magic up Taehyun’s nose, if just to get him to back off a little bit.

A squeak of a recorder sounded behind the two of them. “Fuck! Messed up a note. Just a little longer!”

Hueningkai wanted to whine, instead deflecting some magic shards from Taehyun’s mouth using a quick barrier around his staff. Soobin took to gripping his shield by the edges instead of its interior handle. “A little faster would be nice!” Soobin called, taking the force of Taehyun’s tail as the other thumped it hard against Soobin’s already messed-up shield.

Hueningkai took that opportunity to start firing ranged magic shots into Taehyun’s mouth, making the snake choke and back off.

“Done!” Beomgyu called, the recorder evaporating into magic dust.

Yeonjun groaned, grabbing his bow from where it was laying haphazardly on the side, and he wound up one shot at Taehyun’s mouth, shooting it at a fang. Taehyun shriveled up, whining at the pain in his mouth, and Hueningkai took that as his cue to start climbing.

“You brat,” Yeonjun wheezed, resting his head back onto the dirt. “I heard you squeak.”

“It was an accident, I was under a lot of stress.”

Taehyun continued to wriggle around in the dirt, squirming as Hueningkai climbed up his scales and searched around for a warm spot in between them on his neck. “Sorry, Taehyunnie,” he whispered, reaching far underneath and pulling out Taehyun’s crystarium without too much of a gentle touch. Taehyun hissed and crinkled himself into the floor, obviously exhausted and in so much discomfort with Hueningkai on the back of his neck.

Hueningkai did his best to make it quick, and just as uncomfortably as he’d reached under Taehyun’s scales earlier, he took the gem and pushed it back in. Taehyun’s entire body shuddered and he gasped, turning into nothing but shadows on the floor.

When the mage’s feet hit the floor again, he found Taehyun groaning, face down on the floor. “Taehyunnie? Taehyunnie, are you alright?” He asked, quickly turning the other onto his back, and Taehyun reached up to cover his mouth with his hand.

“My teeth hurt,” He whined, opening his eyes to glare at Yeonjun, who was being helped up by Soobin. 

“Don’t eat me next time,” Yeonjun huffed, putting his bow away, but having the conscience to look at least a little sheepish. 

Hueningkai tossed his arms around Taehyun’s shoulders, keeping him in a tight hug for a second or so before releasing him. “You’re such a troublemaker,” the mage sighed, and Taehyun only managed to roll his eyes. 

“Okay, level eighty mage. Ascend, so we can go back home already.”

“Right, right,” Hueningkai answered, sitting back on his heels. 

His branched crystarium was pulsing happily when he pulled it out that time. It glowed in amber light, and somewhere inside, he could see speckles of his party’s own crystariums’ colors, twinkling like constellations. Hueningkai turned the flower this way and that, pulling on one of the leaves until the crystarium expanded. A brand new branch extended off of the amber core, twinkling with new energy, and just like that, a final wave of amber light pulsed from Hueningkai’s body and settled into the world.

That should have been it. A portal should have opened, or at least a checkpoint should have appeared, and yet the five of them sat dumbfounded as a domain’s entrance opened up instead. 

“Are you kidding me? A final boss?” Hueningkai whispered in disbelief, standing up and dusting off his pants. 

Soobin held up his wrecked shield and then looked at the entrance to the domain. “If we’re lucky, it’ll be a puzzle and not a fight.”

“If it’s a fight, I don’t have another revive left in me until I can recharge at Synodia,” Beomgyu warned, taking to Taehyun’s side. “Someone had to knock Yeonjun-hyung out.”

“That wasn’t me, that was a snake,” Taehyun clarified.

Hueningkai pushed on the door, taking one peek inside, and promptly slammed it shut. “Yeah. There’s a dragon in there.”

“A dragon,” Yeonjun repeated, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. “Hueningkai, I’m not even sure what to say anymore. How did you survive this long, being that overleveled?”

“I don’t know,” Hueningkai answered with an honest frown. “I can try to do this boss myself if you’re all exhausted, I-”

“We won’t make you go in alone,” Soobin quickly interjected. “Let’s go in and make it quick.” 

With the rest of the party nodding in agreement, they pushed the domain’s door open once more, and stepped inside. It was no different than the world they’d found themselves questing in, though the dragon blinked at Hueningkai with large, red eyes. Curiously, it didn’t make a single move, not until Yeonjun drew an arrow back and shot it at the dragon’s belly.

The dragon roared, flames erupting from its mouth as everyone took their regular positions. Taehyun was first, usually the first one to attack in an attempt to inflict a status effect, but the dragon had roared again, when Taehyun came close, causing the other to stutter and only inflict a mild paralysis on it. “Quick, it’s not going to hold up for long!” 

Soobin and Taehyun, as their main physical damage dealers, hurried in close, taking hits at the dragon’s claws as it continued to roar and turn its body away from the blows. Hueningkai was dumbfounded, tilting his head in confusion when he saw that all the dragon was doing was shying further and further away from the others’ attacks. 

“Wait, stop! Stop it!” Hueningkai screamed, trying to close the distance between him and the frontliners. 

“Move it!” Yeonjun called, charging up a final attack with Beomgyu, and Hueningkai watched in horror as the shimmering light arched high above their heads and toward the dragon’s throat.

With as much effort as Hueningkai could muster from his body, he jumped and stretched his staff high into the sky and absorbed the entirety of the charged attack, much to everyone else's horror. The attack recharged from Hueningkais’ staff and sparked back out into the domain, fracturing the walls and kicking up even more dirt.

But the dragon had stopped fighting as well. 

With one last shimmering light, the dragon stared deep into Hueningkai’s exhausted eyes and dissolved into a reflection of himself. The illusionary boss handed Hueningkai a gleaming, silver key with a thankful nod, and turned into dust.

Hueningkai’s crystarium rang, and his amber aura pulsed again, finally solidifying his new summoner role, and he turned to look at the rest of his party with a half smile, half tired look. “It never wanted to fight,” Hueningkai explained. “I never wanted to fight you guys either.”

The teleport portal that sprang up from the ground turned from a burning red into a more peaceful blue. 

Grateful, the rest of the party swooped their mage into their arms, and Hueningkai knew that although this wouldn’t be the last of their disagreements, they’d made it through the quest and could peacefully return to the guild. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes Yeonjun gets stuck with the ears. I'm leaving this ambiguous because I want to expand on this au in the future! thanks for reading!! Yes, Yeonjun keeps the ears. No, Soobin's shield doesn't get fixed LMAO


End file.
